:
Mary Foster Conklin
Life Is a Bitch – The Lyrics of Fran Landesman
Pangea, NYC, March 15, 2018
Review by Peter Haas for Cabaret Scenes
Photo: Burke Hefner
Two of cabaret’s leading ladies were in the spotlight at Pangea on a Saturday night, as Mary Foster Conklin—long-popular vocalist and host of the radio show The Ladies of Jazz—defied the rain, filled the house, and offered a warm-hearted tribute to the late lyricist Fran Landesman. Conklin, wrapping her slightly husky, ever-appealing voice around the wit and wisdom of the writer’s work, and providing colorful background on the lyricist’s professional and personal lives, captured the spirit of Landesman’s gift for telling stories in song.
With sprightly accompaniment by John di Martino on piano and Ed Howard on bass, the evening offered a dozen-plus of those lyrics, written while working with a varied “who’s who” musicians.
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Among her collaborators in the evening’s lineup were: Bob Dorough (“Nothing Like You,” “Never Had the Blues,” and the upbeat “Small Day Tomorrow”); Tommy Wolf (the playful “You Inspire Me,” the tender and moving ”Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” and “It Isn’t So Good, It Couldn’t Get Better” ); Alec Wilder (“You’re Free”/Walk Pretty”—in which Conklin included comments on Landesman’s marriage — and “Photographs”); as well as Richard Rodney Bennett’s “This Must Be Earth.” With an encore (Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To”), Mary Foster Conklin ended the show with an invitation to the audience: “Let’s raise a glass for Fran.
” We did.
